Tea Houses That Nourish Knowledge And Litreary Activities

A famous proverb prevails that a successful woman is behind every successful man. Someone else changed it as there is a large quantity of coffee behind a each successful woman. Well known poet of English T.S. Eliot had said that he measures his life with spoons of coffee. A politician had said that if he was provided a huge quantity of coffee then he would show his rule all over the world. The author of famous novel " Gulliver's travels" Jonathan Swift had said that coffee makes a person philosophy.
In the era of Turks Sultanate and in Middle East Muslims introduced a new coffee culture. They opened coffee houses that were called tea houses by Arabs. In the whole region millions of tea houses are the representatives of strong culture. The tea drinkers had made their social contacts stronger through these tea houses. In addition to discussing various topics the writers started writing books and articles while drinking tea while some used to narrate stories. Poets, writers and intellectuals when gathered in the tea houses their fans and amateur writers also started coming in the tea houses to learn poetry or writings from experienced poets and writers, and the tea houses became "mental power houses". These mental power houses enlightened the minds and hearts of the young generations. Taking from Usmani Sultanate to Europe and America thousands of tea houses got established. The Qissa Khawani (Story Tellers) Bazar of Peshawar is the most famous and typical example of these tea houses. Though in Peshawar it is called "Qahwa Khana" green tea serving restaurant.
The "Pak Tea House" of Lahore has been serving as a sitting and gathering place for well-known poets, writers, journalists, people belonging to fine arts and film industry etc, of the day. The Pak tea house was located in Lahore on Mall Road near the historical bazaar of Lahore "Anar Kali" and Blue Dome (Nila Gumbad).
The great poets, writers, cultural and literary personalities that regularly came to Pak tea house included Faiz aahmad Faiz, Ibn e Insha, Ahmad Faraz, Saadat Hassan Minto, Munir Niazi, Meera Jee, Kamal Rizvi, Nasir Kazmi, Prof Syed Sajjad Baqir Rizvi, Ustad Amanat Ali Khan, Dr Muhammad Baqir, Ashfaq Ahmad, Anjam Roomani, Qayyum Nazar and Intezar Hussain and many more.
Pak tea house also served as a center of political movements. People used to discuss political affairs with out ant risk/danger. This remainerd opened during the matial law regimes of Ayub Khan and Zia ul Haq. At the last this literary birth place of many poets and writers closed during 2006. The owner ahid Hassan wanted to start any other profitable business inspite of serving cup of tea to poets and writers who used to sit here for hours against drinking a cup of tea.He wanted to open tyre shop that he considered more money maker.